


Tonight You Belong to Me

by welseykels



Series: Fallout 4: Charlotte Walsh [5]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/M, far harbor dlc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 05:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8315965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welseykels/pseuds/welseykels
Summary: Nick confesses his feelings to Charlotte on their journey to Far Harbour.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [Check out my writing masterpage on tumblr!](https://welseykels.tumblr.com/writing)

She’s been thinking about this moment for weeks now.  It’s all she’s been able to think about as she and Nick board the boat, ready for whatever they find in Far Harbour. **  
**

MacCready stands on the shore, waving goodbye to her before they part ways for she doesn’t know how long.  She’s not ready, she’s scared.  While she’s gone, he’s making his way back to the Capitol Wasteland to bring Duncan back to their home in Sanctuary.  

They could be a family when she gets back.

_If that’s what she wants._

She’s terrified still.  Their last morning, MacCready told her the dangers of travelling back to the Capitol Wasteland.  She doesn’t know if she’ll ever see him again.  She doesn’t know if she’ll be coming back from Maine, she has no idea what’s she’s going to find there.  No idea if she’ll ever see his face again.

Tears prick at the corner of her eyes as she steers the old fishing boat farther and farther away from shore. She doesn’t want her last glimpse of Mac to be waving to her right before she catches him hastily wiping at his face with his sleeve as she pulls away from the dock.

He understood that they had to part ways - she did too - and neither of them liked it.  Their last morning together had been _I love you’s_ muffled between kisses and moans.  She didn’t want to go without him for what could be months.  For what could be forever.

“Well, I suppose now is our time to talk.”  Nick’s voice comes from the door to the cabin on the boat and breaks her from her worries about her lover.  Her hands tighten on the wheel as she stares out forward to the ocean, she knows what he wants to say.

_Now’s not a good time.  She doesn’t know if there will ever be a good time for the conversation she knows is coming._

The Nicholas Valentine she knew - the one she had loved all those years ago - died when the bombs fell.  And yet he was here, no more than a few feet from her.  His consciousness still alive and well, if not a little worse for wear.  

But he’d admitted to her, after they’d found Eddie Winter, that he wanted something of his own - that he wanted a life that wasn’t the original Nick Valentine’s.  She didn’t know if that includes her or not.  She supposed she was going to find out now.

He sighs, and she can hear his heavy footsteps until they bring him right to her side.

“I’m not him.  I know I’m not.  But the flashes of memories.  The ones of you - they’re enough to make me think I am sometimes.”

She silent for a moment, mulling over the words she can say.  “And is that a good or a bad thing?”

“I don’t know. Maybe some wires have gotten crossed or a sprocket’s lose, but I can’t separate my feelings from Nick’s about you.  I know I’m  just some old bot, who’s a poor substitute for him.  But I want.  Charlie, I love -”

“MacCready…”

He frowns at the name, knows it’s the response he would get, but had hoped against it.  

“Bad timing?”

She nods. “Bad timing.”

He stays there for a moment, before the hand that’s still covered brushes against her cheek. “What if we said to hell with timing?”

She takes off the old worn cap from her head, fingers brushing against the two bullets in the band. She feels guilty having it here, having it in her hands, when he could be needing them. It would kill her to know he did, down to his last bullet and he could have had two more.

She puts the hat in her bag all the same.

“How about we talk about this after we find Kasumi? I need time to think.”

“I’ve waited over two hundred years for you, what’s a little more waiting?”

*****

The wait ends nearly a month later.

They’ve found one of the old movie theatres. This one, unlike its counterpart in the Commonwealth, is still functional.

She nearly laughs, it’s a western.  The same kind of film Nick used to drag her to, well - she didn’t mind it so much when they’d just spend the entire time kissing in his car.

Now, he pulls her quietly into one of the cars at the back of the lot, as to not draw the attention of the dozens of ferals standing docile by the screen.  They don’t want to press their luck.  Not today.  It’s been a long one, and they’ve both run into more Trappers than either of them care to count.  So they take a few moments, just to watch, just for some kind of normalcy that they both once knew.

They’ll hole up in the cinema building for the night, but for now they’ll watch the film once - maybe she’ll take Mac here one day, with the boys, show them what a film was.  After they’ve made the place safe - maybe another settlement here could work.  She’ll have to talk to Avery when they get back to the docks.

She’s content, for the first time since she and Nick stepped onto the island.  Everything they’ve discovered, DiMA, Arcadia, everything that’s been happening on the Island, it’s taken a toll on both of them.  They just need some sort of happiness now.

Nick absently takes her hand in his and that’s when all her memories come slamming into her. That’s how it had always started, his sliding his hand into hers.  After a few minutes, he’d always raise their hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to the back of her palm.  

This time he doesn’t do that.

This time he leans over, face hovering by her own.  She whimpers softly when his lips touch hers and his hand squeezes hers just a fraction tighter.

She’s the one who pulls away, tears already blurring her vision.  “Nick, we can’t, I -” But she stops herself short, his lips feel like home, like the life she knew before the war.

_She doesn’t know if it feels right._

_She doesn’t know if it feels wrong._

She wants them both.  But she knows she can’t - knows it would be something that would just end in losing them both.  She has to choose, and now’s the moment.  Time has run out.

MacCready’s hat is still hidden at the bottom of the bag she carries, she tries not to think about it as she kisses Nick a second time.

She pulls away before a third, riffling through her bag as she makes her way from the car.  She puts her love’s hat on her head as she walks towards the cinema building.  She doesn’t look back at Nick, arms wrapping tightly around herself as she lets her tears fall.


End file.
